


kinda cozy

by benfic



Category: Legally Blonde - Hach/O'Keefe/Benjamin
Genre: Am I really writing Legally Blonde fanfic in the year of our lord 2019, Can we think of literally any other name for it, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Watching Someone Sleep, Wow I hate that name for this trope, Yeah; I figured tagging it anything that implied things were unrequited would be cheating..., oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 19:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17269931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benfic/pseuds/benfic
Summary: Elle insists upon a change of scenery for study purposes (okay, really, I know how that sounds) and Emmett takes her to his apartment. Some mild panicking, very little studying, lots of softness.





	kinda cozy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Soft Place To Land](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489256) by [AssassinOfRome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssassinOfRome/pseuds/AssassinOfRome). 



“It’s... kinda cozy,” she offers, stepping in ahead of him.

 

And it is, a little. It’s dark, and messy, and it’s making her less and less sure that Emmett knows what a broom is, but there are some windows. He’s got a dining room table for a desk, and what might be a bed lurking in the back corner. One bathroom. That’s pretty standard, she supposes. And, hey, his things all sort of gravitate towards lamps and such, so it’s not like they won’t be able to see.

 

Emmett turns on the light and shuts the door behind himself, giving it a good shove with his foot to get it closed all the way.

 

“Not quite what you were expecting?” he asks, grinning. She can tell she has to be careful, though.

 

“It’s very... brown,” she says. “Very you.”

 

“Is it?” He leads her towards the table, dropping his bag against one leg. “Hold on, let me...”

 

He circles the room a couple times, which doesn’t help how small it feels. Eventually he comes up with a smallish, brownish, squarish item of furniture to use as a second chair.

 

“Good enough change of scenery for you, Miss Woods-Comma-Elle?” he asks. Elle wrinkles her nose.

 

“I was being serious,” she says. “I was going to go crazy looking out that window; Vivienne and Warner were doing some serious making out down there.”

 

“Well, if you _study_ , maybe you can find something terrible to accuse her of,” Emmett says, sounding eerily genuine. Elle tosses her hair and looks down at her book.

 

Okay, maybe she was hoping a different setting would also get her out of studying. She’s feeling increasingly sleepy, though she gets the feeling that’s not going to fly with Emmett.

 

“C’mon,” he says, nudging her shoulder. “We can take a break from the main stuff for a day if you need to. Study some Latin roots.”

 

“Mph,” Elle says. She rubs her eyes and pulls the flashcards out of her bag. They’re the white, cheap kind, because Emmett made them and she didn’t think to buy him anything pink to work with. And his writing is all squirrelly; she can’t make out the difference between the i’s and the j’s. Not that she has to, in this case. But—

 

“I should’ve brought Red Bull,” Emmett says, looking absentmindedly towards what is probably a kitchen but looks more like three countertops and a fridge separated from everything else by the thinnest wall Elle’s ever seen.

 

“It’s okay,” Elle says, staring at the cards. “I can do this.”

 

 _You want to do this,_ she tells herself. _Come on. Think of Warner._

 

 _Warner isn’t helping me study,_ her brain retorts irritably. Emmett places a hand on her back, which doesn’t help that line of thinking.

 

“Hey,” he says. She looks at him. “I’ll get you some water. Okay?”

 

“Okay,” she says. He sticks his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt and heads into the kitchen; Elle tries desperately to internalize at least one flashcard. She stares at it, willing herself to learn something. _Come on. You can do this. Show him you know this._

 

She slumps down on the table, resting her head on her arms, and lets out a quiet sigh. This is not going anywhere.

 

**

 

He runs his hands through his hair, standing in front of the sink. He figures he has about five seconds to collect himself; he stares into the drain and tries not to think about Elle.

 

It doesn’t work.

 

“Come on,” he mutters, grabbing a glass. It’s some cheap kind of material that retains neither the appearance of glass nor the sturdiness of plastic. _Not that Elle will care,_ he thinks, which surprises him. But it’s true; it’s been a while since he felt sure she looked down on him for anything.

 

This is not helping.

 

The problem is that he’s going to get her this water, which is out of the tap and probably filtered but also might have lead or something in it, and she’s going to be brushing a strand of hair away from her face while reading. Or tapping a pen against her lip. Or leaning her head on her hand. Whatever.

 

The point is, he is not going to be able to concentrate, and a change of setting has done nothing to hide that.

 

Looking up at the speckled ceiling, Emmett prays to whatever he’s supposed to believe in that Elle won’t be doing something cute when he walks back in the room.

 

He focuses on that idea very hard as he fills the glass; Elle not doing anything cute. Nothing cute at all. That’s getting harder and harder to imagine lately—which he tries not to think about, either—but still. Nothing cute at all, that’s what he’s hoping for.

 

When he walks back into the main room, Elle has fallen asleep on his desk. She has a strand of hair in her mouth, and she’s drooling slightly onto his flashcards.

 

Emmett rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling.

 

 _“Fuck you,”_ he whispers, just quietly enough so that Elle won’t hear.

 

Then he sets the glass down on the table and tries to think of what to do with this.

 

Waking her up is certainly out of the question. She needs her sleep, and besides, she kind of snores and it’s really, really cute.

 

He’s not even trying anymore, is he.

 

Technically speaking, being a good study partner is no longer within his grasp based on the actions of whatever higher power he just tried to appeal to, but at least he could be a _nice_ study partner.

 

She doesn’t have anything due tomorrow—at least, not anything she hasn’t already read. She’s been improving her grades, bit by bit, and Emmett has to admit that she doesn’t need to do what he did. She doesn’t have to worry about jobs or apartments or getting sick because she won’t be able to pay for it.

 

He flicks a strand of her hair without really realizing it. Okay, then. Let her sleep.

 

But this is a chair. And his desk. And he’s not going to let her spend the night here while he gets to sleep in his bed, which is admittedly large and kind of comfortable, if you get past the sag in the middle.

 

He’s not going to move her.

 

Is he?

 

No, he’s not.

 

He touches her shoulder, then shifts her slightly towards his arms. She jolts awake, blinking rapidly.

 

“Sorry,” she manages, as Emmett makes an attempt to stand her up.

 

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he says, leading her to the bed.

 

“But you said—“

 

“I don’t care what I said,” Emmet says, as emphatically as possible, because that is where he is at right now. She’s going to get her sleep, and it’s going to be in his bed, and he’s going to sleep on the floor. He’s committed to this. “You need your sleep.”

 

Elle mumbles something that probably wasn’t meant to sound so affirmative, and Emmett sits her on the bed, starting the complex process of removing her shoes. They have what seems like three buckles at first, but for some reason there’s some kind of backwards one, too, and it’s complicating matters severely. The heels he’s not even going to address.

 

“What are you doing,” Elle mutters, rubbing her eyes.

 

“I don’t know where these things have been,” Emmett says, finally managing to get them off. “And you’re going to sleep, you hear me?”

 

“Mph,” Elle says, which sounds vaguely familiar. She slumps back onto the bed. Emmett gets the blanket out from under her, tosses it over her, and watches her fall back asleep within literal seconds. It’s kind of impressive, actually. Also, she’d better be careful with that blanket; it’s his mom’s and he’s not looking to replace it.

 

He’s not even tired.

 

Sighing, Emmett sits down at the table and takes a drink of water.

 

**

 

This is not her house. It’s Emmett’s house. It’s Emmett’s apartment. It’s kind of dark. Emmett is still asleep, curled up in a brownish shape on the floor, but all of a sudden Elle is feeling very much awake. She didn’t take off her makeup. She didn’t put her hair up. She is probably a total mess right now.

 

Emmett stirs and sits up, rubbing at his face.

 

“You’re awake,” he says.

 

Elle nods. She remembers everything from last night, which is kind of a first for waking up in a guy’s bed. But still-- guy’s bed. She has to sort this out.

 

“How’re you feeling?” he asks.

 

“Well.” Elle says. She blinks a couple times. “I’m pretty sure nothing happened last night, which is good for a lot of reasons. I mean, it’s not you, it’s definitely me, and I don’t even want to think about whether I would’ve wanted something to happen, because at the very least a Delta Nu should have standards and this would be _totally_ inappropriate conduct for the president, I mean, rebound hookups? _So_ not my thing. But now that I’m thinking about it, this relationship doesn’t really feel like a rebound, I mean, if it was a relationship, which it isn’t, I’m _so_ not ready for a relationship right now, but also I know the Delta Nu girls would absolutely tell me to go for this, whatever ‘this’ is, which is way too much thinking about the subject for me, not that I’ve been thinking about it in general, I mean, I have tests to pass and readings to do and I _still_ don’t understand how that guy with the parakeets won his case, let alone how that thing about tables and beds is pronounced, but then I had that weird dream and I’ve been kind of trying to forget about it ever since because, like I said, I just don’t have the _time,_  and speaking of which, did you really let me sleep last night? That is _so_ not you, but super sweet, and there is no _way_ you’re wearing _clothes_ as pajamas, like, what, were you born in a Walmart? Emmett, oh my God.”

 

Emmett looks at her.

 

Elle, for lack of anything better to do, flips her hair.

 

“I didn’t understand,” Emmett says, “anything. That you just said.”

 

“Oh, thank God,” Elle says, and she flops back down on the bed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Huh. So his last name is spelled with two 'r's, according to AO3 (and the few places I could find it online that seemed close-to-official.) Guess I'll keep that in mind for the next fic; no idea how I hadn't noticed it before.
> 
> Anyway, immediately after I finished editing this, I had to write another fic, so that'll be up... soon... 
> 
> Necessary note that... okay, I just looked back and it was _AssassinofRome_ who wrote the [amazing little fic that's basically the inverse of this, down to the locations,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489256) and against all odds, that was also who encouraged me to post more fic? So I was going to thank them here anyway? Wow. Point being that I read that fic and was like "oh yeah... I love this trope... gotta... write more of it..." and also that AssassinofRome is awesome. And I guess I'm typing with normal caps again? whatevs thank you for reading please leave a comment if you enjoyed! clearly it encourages fic ;>


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